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Journals: HENG CH’AU: May 20, 1977 - Yesterday shao-lin was really powerful. I felt a surge of ch’i and power like never before. When your mind is moved by states, the precepts keep a perimeter around you. This is the palace, the Imperial Court of America. Emperors of old never had palaces like the multi-national corp. plazas, fountains, closed circuit T.V., security fences, entertainment…Man on bicycle stops and watches us carefully. He is not disapproving--open. As we get closer he places his palms together in prayer as we pass. Then he rides off into the smog. Bowing states: What a wonderful, honest, and free thing to be--a monk! Passing through the smog my nose gets clogged and I can’t smell too well. The constant drone of traffic smothers other sounds; the sidewalk is one homogeneous spread: What happens when the wind stops? Skin and sidewalk blend without distinction. From cold ashes the fire is kindled and the light warms and illumines all directions. Which is moving, the flag or the wind? What happens then when they both stop? When I am bowing low to the ground, completely vulnerable, I feel totally safe and ok. With all my martial arts training and experience, bowing s number one kung fu. When prostrated, everything is ok. Sock me, stab me, spit or swear--it’s all the same. No problem. I must be crazy, but it’s then that I feel safe and contented from my guts out. They don’t teach that in martial arts yet. Fiery, hostile people harass us. “What the hell you doin’?” “I saw you peek at me!” “Go do that in a church.” “Stop disgracing people!” “You’re going to be arrested.” More anger. “What are you doing? Stop it!” Screaming, wailing, mad laughing. All those years working in mental hospitals takes some of the edge off these jabs. When it gets real thick I imagine us in fire. Pretty hard to start a lake on fire. They throw matches into the fire. We’ve noticed that when situations start getting sticky, either a bus arrives and takes a crowd away or at least eight or nine times fire trucks have come roaring by, diverting the storm. Most interesting is a wonderfully refreshing cool breeze from the West that seems to sedate and mellows us and our antagonists. Through all of this we keep bowing and getting stronger and trying harder to plug our leaks and laugh at ourselves. Prairie Dog Town In the Badlands there are prairie dog towns. They are hug communities of tunneled boroughs where hundred of prairie dogs live. As you approach, the sentry stands on his hind legs and squeaks an alarm. Everybody then pops up to check the scene at a safe distance. The, like disappearing dominoes, they drop out of sight as you walk through. Once past, they pop up again and watch you leave. People gather in huge, clucking assemblies ahead of us. As we get closer, they scatter into the store, houses, and behind curtains to peek out. When they pass they swarm back to talk, stare laugh and wonder. Always they stare and always they wonder, just as predictably as we bow… Question: “What are you bowing to?” Answer: “To everything, everybody.” Question: “To Allah?” Answer: “No, to you.” (afterthought: Yea, to Allah too. It’s all the same. Everywhere in everyone is the Buddhanature.) When we started bowing, it’s hard to explain but we are enclosed in a magic circle. Everything stops and nothing bothers or disturbs. The circle is open to sincere questions and honest comers but closes out troublemakers and the clowns. Really inconceivable. While bowing I saw Kuan Yin Bodhisattva and for some reason tears welled up. Why? We decided to all bow to Shih Fu when laypeople want to bow to us. At this carpeted ultra-modern bank building with outside elevators there was a circle of people and two monks bobbing up and down and mumbling. A man got off the elevator and froze in disbelief and shock. “This is the 20th century America! Is nothing sacred--not even banks?” Heng Sure is learning to use a straightedge. Less wasteful of metal (blades) and less danger to the men who mine the ore eventually. Not necessarily less danger to Heng Sure. HENG SURE: May 21, 1977 - The newspaper announces “Arms Sales Reduction” “Carter to Limit Weapon Sales.” Not that we claim direct credit for this event, but here are the facts: (1) the bowing trip is dedicated to an ending of disasters, catastrophes, and calamities (including nuclear holocausts). We are out to influence people to stop making and selling destructive weapons. We want people to end their karma of hatred and fighting. (2) When the trip was well underway through L.A., Jimmy Carter also showed up in town. He was here for three days while we bowed. (3) There are some powerful spiritual beings on our side. We have witnessed their responses to our work. (4) The Venerable Abbot has told his disciples that the heavenly dragons and others of the 8-fold division of ghosts and spirits and Dharma protectors are all out protecting us and furthering our mutual aims. So is Carter’s response merely a coincidence? Or have we already achieved one of our major aims of the trip? Our instructions on the phone yesterday from Gold Mountain: Don’t get angry, no matter what. If people scold you, swear at you, or hit you, don’t be moved. Don’t get angry. Don’t be happy, don’t be sad and most important, don’t get angry. This feature about Buddhists, that they don’t get angry will have a great deal of significance in the future of Buddhism in this country. Also, do not false-think! Do not have false thoughts! Do not strike up the tiniest idle thought. If you do a good job and don’t talk, then you can have a response and get some accomplishment. If you don’t have to talk, don’t. What the sage said was do not relax your vigil on your mind. Do not let it think. What a non-thought that is! Stop all movement of dharmas. Plug up all the doors! Don’t let it out. Wipe the mind clean. Why is the teaching on anger so important? Because life after life we have killed to eat and been killed to eat until the aggression and resentment have grown into a world-wide war which pits us against ourselves. Therefore, patience, patience, gotta have patience, don’t get angry, swo pwo he is the #1 mantra of our age. Reduce the fire. Can I apply this to meditation? Can I relax this totally and still be awake? Is sleeping during meditation a function of tension? Heng Ch’au and I have decided that we don’t have what it takes to receive bows from laypersons, so when they come to visit, if they wish to bow, we say “bow to Shih Fu” or “bow to the Venerable Abbot” and we face away from them and all bow 3 times. This resolves the situation and we get to bow three bows to the Master. HENG CH’AU: May 21, 1977 - Camped by small park in a well-to-do black exclusive neighborhood. Huge stately houses. Dreamed of Kuo Chou last night. He was very excited, a glowing bright-eyed boy joining us on Three Steps, One Bow. But just as we were ready to go Kuo Tsai showed up with another woman. She and Dave had many agreements and commitments that Dave had forgotten about. In any event, he suddenly became bent, wrinkled, and lost his spark. I’ve had two or three dreams about Kuo Chou like this. Some affinities there… “Children remembered, but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew.” E.E. Cummings I wonder how many people here in this neighborhood, in L.A., in most of urban America, remember--remember how family with uncles, aunts, grandparents nearby and close; to grow some or all of your food; to can, eat together, say goodnight and wake up to the same reality every day. Who remembers? The divorce rate in California is higher than the marriage rate. Child abuse and neglect is off the wall and the walls are covered with graffiti and vandalized by kids who can’t articulate their sufferings. The family is key and Heng Sure and I are every day being bombarded with the results of a people who traded their keys for self and a few dollars. Basically kids gravitate to the truth. The street gangs, early sexual clinging, clutching relationships, drugs, child prostitution, alcohol owes its rise in no small part to the failure of the family to do its job--to tend the sprouts--to meet the basic needs. So now Buddhism is seen as “Disgraceful, disgusting in America.” Right! This is a time when the false has become true and the true is seen as false. My own family, roots, and the small family farm in the Midwest keep me going at times like these, and Buddhism, true cultivation of Buddhism is just the fruit of those roots. I hope I don’t ever forget that. P.S. More people would feel free to leave home, if the family gave them what they needed. They wouldn’t have to attach to husbands, wives, kids, jobs, clubs, etc. to fill the holes. The fire in my body is under better control since sitting Ch’an again. We try to sit two hours a day. T’ai chi and standing meditation have improved too. They are more powerful--like a waterfall--than I’ve ever experienced. It must have something to do with bowing and leaving home; nothing else has changed much. Heng Sure is doing t’ai chi every morning even though it’s really hard, especially at the beginning of the day when it’s cold and dark outside. We are getting along--no fighting, no anger. That makes tight quarters and tight situations a lot easier. It also does not leave a hole for our energy to run out. Our concentration is getting sharper and stronger. I can’t explain it too well in words, but just in that concentration, just by focused mindful action, incredible clarity, ease, balance, and “seeing” are coming forth. What a wonderful chance: bitter practices, Gold Mountain, Three Steps, One Bow. I have so much to repay. Sat. a. m.. The streets are deserted, just smog lingering from last night. People always look so yin and wasted on weekend mornings. What is it about "having fun' "goin'out and doing something" that leaves people so flat and vacant after? Line from song by Incredible String Band: "I used to follow happiness I used to follow pleasure But I found a door behind my mind And that's the greater treasure." Bowing and moving this a.m. I can't remember feeling so peaceful. My feet barely touched the ground. I don't weigh any less but my mind feels a lot lighter. Heng Sure looks so natural and at home bowing down this cement fjord of banks and corporations••a tiny speck in a flowing robe••somehow he stands out, doesn't get buried or submerged like everything else. This is the Triple Jewel in America••not Hong Sure and me but the Sangha according and not moving, not moving and according with conditions. Ancient, modern, dated and now, it doesn't matter as long as the source is cultivated, penetrated, kept alive through practice. Then the true and orthodox will be healthy. So even though people look askance, in the long run, all people seek the truth. They won't be tricked or sold short. It's only a question of time, sincerity, and true practice, This is where the Moonies and Krishna's miss the boat. Their practice doesn't penetrate through to their own true nature, the source, so they underestimate and compassionlessly try to "convert" others. "No one saves us but ourselves; Buddhas only show the way." How is it the Way if you don't walk it? Ordinary people don't know to look within. But having looked long and hard outside without finding what they ultimately seek, some are, even if reluctantly or defiantly, beginning to return the light. One can only "go West" so long. Eventually there is nowhere left to go. This is no clearer than here in L.A. We'll all get to the heart of this sick body together, eventually. So it's important to keep the proper Dharma, the medicine-antidote, safe and available. The way to make it safe is by turning the light around••by cleaning up our own act. We must renounce the "self" through hard work and patience. All these people are watching--watching with fear and a little hope. I just don't have my rap down. I can't seem to make people wonder and understand what the Sino•American Buddhist Association is all about. There's a right time and place to say the right thing. Mostly I discover it after the people have gone. This a .m. a carful of sincere questions from a family. They wanted to know about Hong Sure's and my personal background. That's not the point, but it's hard to talk to a larger issue without seeming to pitch and expound. That's because of no wisdom. Anyway, after I walked away and started bowing I realized the handout release would have been just the thing. So swallowing some doubts about proselytizing I ran back and slipped them one. God bless the grass that grows in the cracks. Pete Seeger Who looks best on a Saturday morning? The kids and the grass. "how can you pick up what's true if you don't put down what's false?" If you didn't mess with anything in L.A. (just leave everything be, still) in a short time the grass and natural environment would reclaim break through the cement and smog. So too with myself and the cement I put around my true nature. Offerings: pen filler, lunch, three log books. Group karma and upside•downness: In L.A. people are starting to buy drinking water••the tap eater isn't palatable. "Only five or ten cents a gallon..." says one upasika. "We saw it at the supermarket for ten cents a half gallon." says a monk. "Oh'. It's going up. Better go out and stock up. Next month gas will be $1.00 a gallon." In L.A. gas is as important as blood. It's going to be a hot, angry summer in L.A. for people who can't afford gas or water. "Pretty soon you'll have to buy air." Ha, ha, weak laughter. How far can you drive down the wrong road before you admit you're lost? California, here we come... "The answer my friend, is blowing in the ‘within.’" Buy a new hard now and Jim White Ford In a thousand ways in everything we see••within and without••the Dharma speaks. "I guess I won't be able to shower everyday anymore," adds the upasika. Connection! Cause and effect. Saturday PM. Hot, real hot. Bowing on black cement is like bowing in a frying pan. For all the ants I burned with a magnifying glass as a kid… On weekends when the streets are empty, it becomes quite unreal out there. We could be bowing through the Arabian Desert for all I know. Two laypeople rode the bus out to find us and give us some apples, honey, and crackers. They were so alive and refreshing. We had just finished a particularly hot stretch. More and more the journey goes within. We get less and less moved••bothered by horns, hoots and conditions. Actually it feels cool, even though it's scorching. A strange zombie character appeared from somewhere and pressed close to drone, "What can you tell me about religion?" All I could tell him was my little rap about Three Steps, One Bow. After I thought about it I realized I could have said, "I can't tell you anything but I know someone who could answer every question and tell you anything you want to know." “Who?" "You. Cultivate morality and concentration and you will find your answers." Simple. Always too late, Kuo T'ing (Heng Ch'au). Question: "What are you doing?" Answer: "Who is doing the asking? Answer that and you'll know what we're doing." Removing false thoughts and afflictions, enter the Avatamsaka sea. The pure source Boundless, beyond words Watch your holes Almost every pay phone and toilet in L.A. so far has the sign "Out of Order." So true. Upside down. No order, no harmony. Soon The airports and roads to L.A. will be blocked with signs reading "Out of Order." 90% of America's T.V. and movies are made here••"Out of Order." "Out of Order." "When the universe of a billion worlds is contemplated in stillness, one sees that bad karma has welled up and filled it all." Master Hua Out of Order."
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